darwin's radio

for context: i’ve read three of greg bear’s novels previously. i liked blood music a lot, and i adored the forge of god and anvil of stars. he was a very prolific author, and i decided after finishing anvil of stars that i’d try and read all his original fiction.

so, sometimes when i’m reading something, i start thinking about how i’ll structure my (semi) review, and what i’ll say in it. halfway through darwin’s radio, i expected to have nothing but praise. “this is electrifying sci-fi, real crackerjack stuff.”

suffice it to say i can no longer describe the book in those terms, lmao. don’t get me wrong: there’s compelling stuff in there. bear has once again nailed depicting an ongoing crisis from multiple perspectives.

however, the book gets politically… weird. some of this is to be expected, based on the premise. it’s a book about a virus that causes miscarriages and deformed fetuses, potentially as an attempt to advance humanity to the next evolutionary stage. from that alone, it’s already on thin ice in multiple realms.

for example: the fetuses are supposed to be humanity’s next stage, aborting is presented as ignorant, regressive, biological luddism. it creates a world in which anti-abortion argument is basically correct. plus, the idea of humanity even having a next evolutionary stage is fraught in a bunch of ways.

still, though, even if it wasn’t able to thread these needles, it could’ve been better than what it was. there’s a lot of racialization as analogy for government oppression and social ostracism in a way that’s deeply uncomfortable. i’m white, so i don’t have any direct experience with racism, but it strikes me as really crass. it’s even crasser when one of the characters making these comparisons is a white guy who became persona non grata in the scientific community for stealing a mummified corpse from native peoples for Science Purposes.

my overall verdict: there’s still some compelling stuff here, and i’m still going to read the sequel. i’d stop well short of actually recommending it to anyone, though.